Along with luminaries like R.E.M., the B-52's, and Pylon, Love Tractor helped establish the college town of Athens, GA, as a mecca of alternative music in the early '80s. Comprised of guitarist Michael Richmond, multi-instrumentalist Armistead Wellford, drummer Kit Schwartz, and guitarist Mark Cline, the band's earliest material was... [+] Read More

Yes No

Avant-garde pop project with new wave and jazz sidemen. ~ All Music Guide, All Music Guide

Yes No

Despite failing to equal the commercial success or cross-cultural impact of their Athens, GA ,compatriots R.E.M. and the B-52's, Pylon's influence on the city's legendary music scene proved just as pronounced -- the group's propulsive, angular jangle pop sound resonated not only through the Athens creative community but throughout the American... [+] Read More

Yes No

At the start of their career, Talking Heads were all nervous energy, detached emotion, and subdued minimalism. When they released their last album about 12 years later, the band had recorded everything from art-funk to polyrhythmic worldbeat explorations and simple, melodic guitar pop. Between their first album in 1977 and their last in 1988,... [+] Read More

Yes No

New York City rockers The Fabulous Entourage serve up exuberant, irrepressibly glam New Wave rock, infused with lush Motown-inspired vocal arrangements, throbbing dance beats, and equal doses of sunshine and melodrama.


In addition to concocting ass-kicking pop music, The Fabulous Entourage are known for their raucous live shows,... [+] Read More

Yes No

The Ramones are the first punk rock band. Other bands, such as the Stooges and the New York Dolls, came before them and set the stage and aesthetic for punk, and bands that immediately followed, such as the Sex Pistols, made the latent violence of the music more explicit, but the Ramones crystallized the musical ideals of the genre. By cutting... [+] Read More

Yes No

Spring 2004. Somewhere on the crossroads between the cities of Mechelen (Belgium) and Leuven (Belgium), along the muddy banks of “De Dijle”, six gentlemen and a lady decide to join forces. They wanted to revive seventies funk, eighties kitsch and combine them with the grooves and guitars of the nineties. They started making this... [+] Read More

Yes No

Combining a knack for infectious melodies with a quirky, bizarre sense of humor and a vaguely avant-garde aesthetic borrowed from the New York post-punk underground, They Might Be Giants became one of the most unlikely alternative success stories of the late '80s and early '90s. Musically, the duo of John Flansburgh and John Linnell borrowed... [+] Read More

Yes No

Tom Tom Club began life as a side project for Talking Heads members Chris Frantz and Tina Weymouth, who adopted a light, tropical dance style that won them a gold album in Tom Tom Club in 1981 and a Top 40 single in "Genius of Love." They continued to make albums under this moniker between Heads production projects: Close to the Bone (1983) and... [+] Read More

Yes No

Was (Not Was) plays contemporary R&B dance music, with lyrics that range from the satiric to the bizarre. The group is led by Detroit-natives David Weiss (David Was), who plays flute and writes those lyrics, and Don Fagenson (Don Was), who plays bass and writes music, but the group is fronted by singers Harry Bowens and Sweet Pea Atkinson. Was... [+] Read More

Yes No

XTC was one of the smartest -- and catchiest -- British pop bands to emerge from the punk and new wave explosion of the late '70s. From the tense, jerky riffs of their early singles to the lushly arranged, meticulous pop of their later albums, XTC's music has always been driven by the hook-laden songwriting of guitarist Andy Partridge and... [+] Read More

Yes No